Archive for January 20th, 2009

The Commuted Sentences of U.S. Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, are great news for their families, and is great in getting them out of prison where they don’t belong, but they should have been Pardoned.

These men were doing the job they were trained to do, and should never have been convicted. But since President Bush showed his Liberal side, (as he has done so many other times) these two men are still considered convicted felons and so will have all the restrictions that apply to felons, and no matter what anyone says they will be treated as such, and that is just not right.

The announcement came on the last full day of Bush’s presidency. The sentences for Ramos and Compean are scheduled to expire March 20 but there was no immediate explanation for the time period between today’s announcement and that date.

Two years ago, Ramos and Compean began serving sentences of 11- and 12- years respectively for a 2005 incident in which they fired on a drug smuggler as he fled back into Mexico after bringing 750 pounds of marijuana into the U.S. near Fabens, Texas.

“Thank God for this commutation,” said Joseph Farah, editor of WND, who launched a petition and letter-writing campaign that re-energized the Ramos-Compean issue in the last 30 days of Bush’s term. “This will end the sleepless nights for their wives and children. This is the first step toward making these families whole, again.”

His petition collected more than 40,000 signatures by the time today’s announcement was made, and the letter campaign produced more than 3,000 FedEx letters to the White House.

“We can only thank Joseph Farah, Jerome Corsi and the staff at WorldNetDaily because from the beginning you have been with us and you never gave up on the case,” Joe Loya, Ramos’ father-in-law, said today. “Your reporting had a lot to do with the decision today by President Bush to commute the sentences.”

The petition had described how the agents “are now serving outrageously long prison terms for shooting and wounding, in the line of duty, a fleeing illegal alien drug smuggler trying to bring almost 800 pounds of marijuana into the U.S.”

The smuggler was granted immunity for his illegal activities in return for testifying against the agents. After the trial, it was revealed the smuggler participated in another drug run into the U.S. while he held immunity.

The law under which the agents were ordered to serve minimum 10-year sentences for using a firearm in the commission of a crime never had been applied to law enforcement officers.